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Happy New Year, all!! I hope you enjoyed a relaxing holiday season and had plenty of time with those you love most. This time of year is always great for reconnecting with friends you don’t see often, getting extended time with family AND…..plenty of delicious food and libations!

About that last part…libations…I have a new favorite ‘warm drink’ that I can’t wait to share with you. It’s perfect for this cold time of year when you want to stay in and drink something warm and toasty. Have YOU had a Tom & Jerry?

If YES: I’m so happy that I finally know what all the fuss is about.

If NO: MAN you need to try this!

The best way I can describe a Tom & Jerry is an egg noggy ice cream (the “mix”) that’s added to a hot beverage of either hot milk or hot water, some booze is mixed in and TA DA…a boozy float of goodness. It’s GOOD.

Now, you can buy Tom & Jerry mix at the grocery store…it’s usually near the ice cream in the frozen section. However, you can also make this at home and it’s really not terribly hard to do so. You likely already have everything on hand anyway, so I like to think you’re saving yourself a couple of bucks. 🙂

We made this over the Christmas holiday with Luke’s family and I’m sure I’ll be whipping up a batch for him and I to have in our own freezer for when we have friends over.

So, if you’re looking for a way to continue to celebrate New Year’s with fun and fancy drinks, this is one I recommend with two thumbs WAYYYYYY up in the air. It would also be great on a night in with your significant other, friends or heck, just a fun drink to have while you’re curled up binging on Netflix (ummm….Friends is on Netflix…already fully committed to watching the whole series from start to finish). Whatever the occasion – make this. Do it.

Here we go…thanks to Girls Guide to Butter for the base recipe! We adapted a bit but I was so thankful to have a place to start from. We made 6 cups of batter so we’d have enough for family throughout the time we were in WI, but you can easily adjust for the amount you’d like to make. Essentially, the amount of eggs equals the quantity of batter (in cups) you’ll end up with. Just adjust the other ingredients up or down depending on how much batter you’re going for. I

Ingredients (for 6 cups of batter):

For the Tom & Jerry mix…

6 eggs, separated (whites in one bowl and yolks in another bowl)

Pinch of salt (helps when whipping the egg whites)

2 sticks of softened unsalted butter

(approximately) 7 cups of powdered sugar

2 tsp of vanilla extract

1 tsp nutmeg

When ready to make the drinks…

Hot water or hot milk (your preference)

A “glug” of your favorite brandy

A “glug” of your favorite rum

Nutmeg to sprinkle of top

How to Make:

First step is to separate your eggs. I do this by cracking each in my hands and letting the whites slip through my fingers into a bowl until I’m left holding just the yolk. Then I slide the yolk into a separate bowl. Easy! Messy, but easy. Do this with all of the eggs and then set aside the bowl with the yolks.

Grab the bowl with the whites and locate your hand mixer or prep your stand mixer. Beat your eggs whites for several minutes until the whites come together to form stiff peaks. This takes several minutes, so chat up those in the kitchen or enjoy your current Netflix selection. One helpful hint would be to sprinkle in some salt while you’re whipping the egg whites, it helps!

Once the egg whites look something like the Rocky Mtns, slide them out of the bowl and into another bowl off to the side.

Back in your mixing bowl, add the softened butter and beat it until it’s light and creamy. Then add in the egg yolks and beat them in, then slowly add in the powdered sugar (I recommend adding a cup at a time, to prevent the powdered sugar cloud poofing up from the mixer).

Also add in the vanilla and the nutmeg and beat that in before finally beating in those egg whites you set aside.

The final batter looks a bit like ice cream that’s been sitting on the counter softening for an hour…and it tastes SO GOOD. I may have tried a wee bit.

All that’s left to do, is freeze it! This makes it more like a boozy float as the Tom & Jerry mix floats to the top before melting.

After freezing for a few hours, pull it out and grab your favorite collection of mugs.

Put 1 ice cream scoop amount into each mug…

Pour a “glug” (about 1/2 a shot) of each of your booze selections (rum and brandy work really well!)…

Then, fill the rest of the mug up with hot water or hot milk and sprinkle the top with nutmeg. We did water, but milk would make this even more creamy and would be JUST as great. (FYI…for anyone having a booze-free version, this can be just Tom & Jerry mix and the hot water or hot milk.)

Hope you guys try this beverage out and enjoy serving to family and friends too! Click this link for a printable recipe PDF.

Like this:

Now surprising to me, one of the most popular posts I’ve had on this blog to date was the first post that involved alcohol…this beautiful White Sangria that I posted back in the Spring of 2012. Beverages in general have been very popular on here in general. Not sure if you all were in need of fun beverages to serve up or the pictures grabbed you. Regardless, I’ve been on the hunt for some fun, new beverages to try and then share with you all as you enjoyed them so much thus far. I think I have a winner!

Before I dive into this…let me explain a bit. I’m not normally a true cocktail girl. Some have their usual drink, like a martini, or an Old Fashioned, etc. I never really knew what my signature ‘cocktail’ was. However, I knew some libations that I enjoyed and wondered what concoction could fuse them all together. What libations, you may ask?

Well rum would be the hard alcohol I would choose for a drink, if ever presented with all options. And, well, this may seem odd but I have a really love for butterscotch schnapps. If you have not had the latter, you have NOT. LIVED. It literally tastes like liquid butterscotch. Deliciousness. Pure deliciousness, my friends.

So back to the signature cocktail dilemma. I wondered what would mix well with rum and butterscotch schnapps. Was there such a thing?! There is, ladies and gentlemen! I present to you….

The Pineapple Upside Down Cake Cocktail! I saw this on a few various websites/blogs and each with their own slightly different spin. This cocktail is simple, it’s not overly boozy, it’s tasty and it’s not too sweet.

In other words, it’s perfect.

I’ve decided that this shall be MY signature cocktail! Perhaps yours too?! Or maybe just a fun drink to serve up at your next gathering. Regardless…here’s what you need:

As you may have anticipated, this cocktail doesn’t require a rocket scientist to mix up. Here’s the liquid cast of characters…

…and the basic step by step goes something like this:

Grab yourself a festive glass…and throw in a few ice cubes…

Pour in your rum (you can go more or less than the 1 1/2 shots depending on what type of strength you’re going for here)…

…pour in your butterscotch schnapps…

…then while you pour in the pineapple juice on top, stir it all up with a long spoon or stir stick.

Grab a few Maraschino cherries and line ’em up on a toothpick to be fancy or plop ’em right in the glass if you’re anti-toothpick.

Serve these up to friends and family as a delicious beverage they’ll for sure want a second round of! You can make these in bulk easily if you buy the large cans of pineapple juice vs. the small single size cans. Otherwise, each can of pineapple juice makes one drink.

I hope you enjoy this tasty libation as much as I did! If you all have other cocktail recommendations that I should try out, leave a comment below and I’ll see what I can mix up for a future blog post!